2011 Annual Report of the Interception of Communications Commissioner
The red recommendations fitted into three distinct areas. First, over half of the prisons inspected
were found to have failings in either the offence related or intelligence-led Pin-phone monitoring.
These failings more often than not result from a lack of equipment and resources to conduct the
interception properly, especially when large numbers of prisoners require monitoring.
“These failings [in the monitoring of prisoners telephone calls] more often than
not result from a lack of equipment and resources to conduct the interception
properly”
Although I am pleased to report that nearly all of the prisons inspected this year had introduced
Interception Risk Assessments into the process, approximately a quarter of the prisons were
not completing these assessments robustly, which compounds the problem. When properly
completed, Interception Risk Assessments provide good evidence to show that the risk factors
have been taken into account and they generally lead to a reduction in the number of prisoners
requiring monitoring. It is clear that a number of establishments are still struggling with compliance
in this respect, even though the monitoring staff are working diligently.
I believe that the setting of targets must be geared to the level of risk which the prisoners pose
and the equipment and resources that are available, otherwise the monitoring staff will not be
able to prioritise their work. In my judgement each establishment must try to adopt the most
tenable position it can, given that there may be a large number of individuals who pose a risk to
children or are subject to harassment restrictions.
“The Prison Service has designed a new interception risk assessment template...
hopefully this will assist the prisons to achieve a better level of compliance in this
area”.
The Prison Service has designed a new Interception Risk Assessment template which has been
piloted at a number of prisons and hopefully this will assist the prisons to achieve a better level
of compliance in this area. It is also worthy of note that in 17 of the establishments that were not
conducting the offence related and / or intelligence-led monitoring of prisoners calls effectively,
my inspectors found that random monitoring was still being conducted. It is important for the
prisons to ensure that random monitoring takes the lowest priority under the interception
strategy. First the monitoring staff must deal with the telephone calls which are made by prisoners
who are subject to offence related or intelligence-led monitoring. Recommendations were made
to this effect and this should free up some more resources in some of these prisons.
Failure to monitor properly the communications of prisoners who pose a risk to children, the
public or the good order, security and discipline of the prison could place managers and staff in an
indefensible position if a serious incident was to occur which could have been prevented through
the gathering of intercept intelligence. Fortunately my inspectors have not found any evidence of
harm to children or members of the public who need to be protected from these prisoners but
nevertheless the risk is there.
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